A Different Beginning
by Hekate-13
Summary: What if Susan never died? What if Lexie wasn't Susan's daughter? What if Thatcher didn't know about Lexie? And Lexie didn't know about Thatcher, Molly, Susan, and Meredith. How different would Lexie and Meredith's relationship be if Meredith and Lexie didn't know they were sisters? Would Mark still fall for Lexie, if Derek didn't forbid him to be with Lexie? AU


_**Story will start in Season 5, with a couple of tweaks. George passes his intern exam, Susan does not die, and Lexie does not show up until Here Comes the Flood. Season 4 and the first two episodes of Season 5 are pretty much the same just without Lexie's storylines.**_

Webber had finished his speech about the new teaching protocols that were going to be implemented at Seattle Grace several minutes ago and Bailey was waiting for the group of second year residents and interns to show up outside of Shelley Boden's room.

"Dr. Bailey?"

Bailey looked up from her charts to see a rather young brunette in baby blue scrubs standing in front of her looking rather nervous.

"Can I help you?" asked Bailey wondering why an intern was bothering her and not her own resident.

"My name is Lexie, I'm the new intern," said Lexie fidgeting underneath Bailey's stare. "Patricia, the Chief's secretary, told me to find you, so that you could assign me to a resident."

"Right, you're the new intern the Chief told me about. Since you have started here late you won't be assigned to a single resident. Each resident has the same number of interns, so that they remain even, you'll rotate each week between residents and/or attendings."

"Okay."

"Today you'll be assigned to Dr. Yang," stated Bailey, continuing to stare at Lexie in wonder. "I'm sorry, but you look awfully familiar to me. Have we ever met?"

"I don't believe we have," answered Lexie, twirling her ID badge. "I've only been here in Seattle for about a week. I guess I just have one of those faces."

"Maybe," muttered Bailey, unconvinced. _She looks like someone I know but I can't quite figure out who it can be._ "Where were you before coming here?"

"Massachusetts General."

"Then you should already know how to do the basics, am I right?" Bailey questioned Lexie. She wondered why in the world someone would leave the number four teaching hospital in the country for the number twelve hospital. _I still think that the rankings are a mistake._

"Yes, ma'am," replied Lexie anxious to start working again.

"Good," muttered Bailey, still trying to figure out who this new intern looked like. "You can wait with me while the rest of the interns, and residents arrive for rounds."

Bailey and Lexie waited in awkward silence waiting for the others to arrive. Lexie was rocking the balls of her fee trying to ignore Bailey's stare.

_Well this is awkward, _thought Lexie glancing in every direction except for Bailey's.

They were both saved from anymore-uncomfortable conversations by the arrival of the rest of the residents and interns. Lexie made her way inside the patient's room behind the rest of the group.

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"Dr. Yang," called out Bailey as the group made their way out of Shelley's room. "A word."

"One, Two, and Three go help Stevens and O'Malley in the clinic," ordered Cristina, heading back towards Bailey.

"Yang, meet your new intern for the week." Bailey gestured towards Lexie, who gave Cristina a small, nervous smile. "And no you will not be sending her to the pit right away. She is new here and you will have her working with you on Shepherd's case this morning. You can send her down to the pit after lunch."

"Why is she my intern for the week?" asked Cristina, upset that she couldn't get rid of the intern. "Whose intern is she?"

"Because I said so. And because you all have the same number of interns I don't want one of you to have more interns than one another. She'll switch off between the five of you and the attendings."

"Right," sighed Cristina, still upset that she now had to put up with another intern. Pointing at Lexie, "You. Let's go."

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"Our patient is Mr. Patmore, he's been in constant pain all day, every day for the past seven years. He's been on every type of pain and anti-seizure medication that you can think of and nothing has helped. Dr. Shepherd is going to run some tests to try to determine the cause of his pain. If we can't find out the cause Dr. Shepherd is going to perform a frontal lobotomy."

Cristina brought Lexie up to speed with the case that she would be helping her and Shepherd. She led Lexie into one of the procedure rooms in the neuro wing.

Cristina stopped just outside the room and turned to Lexie, who almost ran into her. "Do not speak to loudly. Any sound above a whisper aggravates his pain, and so do any bright lights."

Not waiting for a response Cristina opened the door and gave Lexie a slight push inside before shutting the door.

"Ah Dr. Yang so glad that you could join us," whispered Derek walking towards them. "Can you please monitor Mr. Patmore's vitals, while I set him up for his next test?"

"Um, Dr. Yang," mumbled Lexie. "I think I might have an idea."

"Don't think. Know. Go get his test results."

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"Excuse me. Is there an ENT on-call?" Lexie asked the nurse sitting at the nurses' station.

"Yes, there's Dr. Sloan and Dr. Smith. Dr. Sloan is right over there."

Nurse Olivia pointed at Mark, who was standing across the room, writing in a chart.

"Dr. Sloan," said Lexie walking up to him. "I'm working with Dr. Shepherd on a pain patient and…"

"You're an intern. Why are you talking to me?"

Lexie rolled her eyes. _Seriously, is every attending and resident in this hospital rude to everyone or just the new people?_ Lexie continued ignoring his question, "I read this article a few years ago, and I do have a photographic memory. The chief is on this new thing where he wants the interns to be heard and not just seen…"

"Use fewer words."

"I think he needs an ENT," blurted Lexie. "You're an ENT, right?"

"I am," replied Mark impatiently. He was having a bad day; some of his surgeries had been canceled due to the patients leaving because of the leak. "But I'm not the only ENT on-call, and I have other surgeries and consults that I need to get to."

"Fine. I guess I'll go tell Dr. Smith that there is a patient that mostly likely has anterior ethmoid neurovascular complex," said Lexie walking away from Mark. "I'm sure they'll be more than happy to perform surgery on a man with an incredibly rare condition."

"Whoa, whoa, wait, wait." Mark ran after Lexie, stopping in front of her blocking her from getting on the elevator. "I apologize for my behavior, I am not having a very good day. Now, can you tell me more about this patient?"

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Lexie sat alone in the crowded cafeteria eating her lunch and reading a book. She had been planning on sitting with the other interns, but they had already formed their own little clique, and she had never been good at making friends the first day of school/work, or any day really. She was halfway done with her lunch when she saw four residents, including Cristina, approaching her table.

"Can we sit here?" asked the shorter of the two guys.

"Sure."

"Thanks."

Lexie continued to eat her lunch in silence ignoring the conversation that the four residents were having. She was almost finished with her lunch, when she heard Cristina ask her a question.

"Sorry, what was that?" asked Lexie.

"How did you diagnose that nerve because I've never even heard of that condition before?" The blonde repeated Cristina's question.

"Oh, that," sighed Lexie, she didn't really like telling people that she had a photographic memory because they often thought that she had an advantage over them, which she did. "I remembered an article from the _'British Journal of E.N.T.' _It was issue number 47, page 19 from 1964."

Lexie blushed when all four residents turned to look at her in amazement. "I-I have a photographic memory."

"Dude, she a walking-talking encyclopedia," said the other guy, through a mouthful of food.

Lexie's phone started ringing looking at the screen; she got up in a hurry to answer the call as far away from the noisy cafeteria as possible. "Sorry I have to go."

"Wait you never told us your name," called out the shorter guy. "I'm George." Pointing to the blonde and the other guy, "That's Meredith and Alex. And you already know Cristina. What's your name?"

"Lexie."

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"You."

Lexie looked up the patient that she had been placing sutures on their arm, to see Dr. Sloan walking over towards her. Dr. Yang had sent her down to the pit after lunch.

"Dr. Sloan," greeted Lexie going back to her work.

"Subcuticular suture?" Mark was surprised that an intern even knew about that stitch, and was able to do it rather well. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"Mass. Gen. and a lot of time and practice in the skills lab," replied Lexie concentrating on her patient. "Is there something you needed Dr. Sloan?" 

"Despite you being an intern you're not entirely useless," started Mark causing Lexie to glare at him. "Mr. Patmore's condition is extremely rare and you nailed it. You can scrub in."

"Now? You doing the surgery now with the flood?"

"The flood is contained and the man has been in pain for seven years. See you in surgery."

"B-But I still have to finish stitching his arm." Lexie gestured to her patient, that had a fairly long cut on his arm.

"STEVENS!" Mark shouted startling Izzie, who had been walking by.

"Yes, Dr. Sloan."

"Finish for this intern here. She is scrubbing in with me."

"I have to oversee the clince," replied Izzie. "I have to help out set up post and pre- ops."

"If you can't finish the sutures find someone else she's coming with me."

"You, let's go."

"Sorry," apologized Lexie to her patient and Izzie. She ran after Mark out of the pit and to the scrub room.

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Mark entered Joe's Bar with Derek and Meredith following him inside. Mark was not having a good day, one of the interns had made him spill his cappuccino, and he had already been running late because the hotel had messed up his breakfast order, so he wasn't able to get another cup. Then with the flood happening at the hospital, some of his patients had rescheduled their surgeries and consults, and just when he thought that his day had gotten better by performing a very rare surgery, he had to give up his OR, because the only other working OR's ceiling had collapsed on a patient. Mark just wanted to have a couple of drinks with his friends and then head home and forget that today had ever happened.

Derek and Meredith went to look for a table while he went to go grab their drinks. It looked like today was a busier day than usual for Joe, apparently there was a soccer game on tonight. Mark stopped short as he headed for Derek and Meredith, having spotted Derek's hair across the room. Derek and Meredith had sat a table with the only available seats in the entire bar, and Lexie was there.

Mark never apologized to anyone or cared what anyone thought other than Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd, and Derek, but for some reason he felt that he needed to apologize to Lexie for the way that he had behaved today. Mark went back to the bar and ordered another drink for Lexie before making his way over to the table.

"Here we go," said Mark placing the drinks on the table, handing Derek and Meredith their drinks. Turning to Lexie he handed her her drink. Lexie raised her eyebrows in question, looking down at the drink and back up at him. Mark simply gave a slight nod, and nudged the drink closer to her.

"Why did you transfer from Mass. Gen to Seattle Grace?" Mark asked Lexie, taking a sip of his scotch. "The rankings came out a few weeks ago, and Mass. Gen is ranked number four while Seattle Grace is number twelve. Who in their right mind transfers from a number 4 to a number 12 hospital? Did you kill someone?"

Lexie glared at Mark, "No, I didn't kill anyone. I transferred hospitals because my family lives here in Seattle."

"Sorry," apologized Mark, mentally kicking himself for sticking his foot in his mouth again.

"So, Lexie," grinned Derek watching Mark and Lexie. "How did you know about Mr. Patmore's condition? Mark told me that more often than not that condition gets misdiagnosed and the patients usually end up on pain medications for the rest of their lives, often becoming addicts. Or that they sometimes do end up having a frontal lobectomy."

"She has a photographic memory," said Meredith, remembering what happened at lunch. "So that must've came in pretty handy during school."

"It's pretty handy," admitted Lexie, blushing underneath the other's stares. "I did skip third grade. During med school I didn't have to study as hard as my other classmates. But it has its drawbacks."

"Like what?" asked Derek interested, he had never met someone with a photographic memory.

"Well, in high school and college, some of my classmates figured out that I had photographic memory, and they would always want to be my study-buddy. I didn't mind helping them out every once in a while, but they sometimes wanted me to do all of their work. So there's that, and when you want to forget things, like embarrassing situations, it's kinda hard when you can remember everything. There were times during college, and med school that I would sometimes do last minute studying and try to remember as many things as I could, that didn't work out to well for me."

"Why?"

"The best way that I can describe it is my memory is like a computer database. I can download, and process a lot of information, but not all at once. I just read so much. My head got so full. I think things were falling out. There was nothing in my brain."

Mark, Derek, and Meredith laugh, seeing Lexie shake her head.

"It's not funny. And then sometime I remember useless information for the rest of my life. I can recite the entire _The Lion King_ movie."

"The Lion King?" question Mark.

"It's one of my favorite movies, okay."

"Aren't you a little old to be watching Disney movies?" laughed Mark. "Aren't you like 25 years old?"

"Shut up," pouted Lexie, feeling like the other three were ganging up on her. "I'm 24, I skipped third grade. You are never too old to watch Disney movies."

"I'm your attending you can't tell me to shut up," said Mark, ignorant of Derek and Meredith's looks. Derek and Meredith had never seen Mark smile or look so happy in the entire time he had been in Seattle, or ever, in Derek's case.

"Not on the clock," argued Lexie. "You are not my attending outside of the hospital."

"Okay, fine, fine," conceded Mark holding his hands up in surrender. "Let's see how good your photographic memory is. Periodic table. Go."

"Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Neon, Sodium, Magnesium, Aluminum, Silicon, Phosphorus, Sulfur, … Ununoctium."

"I'm impressed."

Lexie smiled looking down at her watch. Standing up reluctantly, "As much as I enjoyed this, I actually have to get going. I still have some unpacking to do."

"What's your name?" asked Derek as Lexie gathered her coat and bag. Seeing the confused looks on Mark, Meredith and Lexie faces he quickly explained. "I'm only asking since Mark and I are attendings we can't call interns by their first name. The other interns and residents will think that we are playing favorites."

"Oh, right," said Lexie pulling on her coat. "It's Lexie, Lexie Grey."

_**AN: As you can see Meredith and Mark are going to be a bit OOC. So a bit of backstory: Lexie is Molly and Meredith's sister and Thatcher's daughter. But, she is not Susan's daughter. Molly, Meredith, Thatcher, and Susan do not know about Lexie at all, and Lexie doesn't know about them either. Obviously I can't tell you everything about Lexie's family, because that would defeat the purpose of this story. To the readers of 'Secrets', my apologies for the wait. I am in college and I had to write an essay for my English class twice because my teacher gave us the wrong prompt and didn't realize it until the day before the essay was due, so I had to re-write it. I also had a Calculus test this week. But no worries, I am halfway done with chapter 6 of 'Secrets' by Saturday. I have posted a picture for Secrets on my profile. If anyone wishes to due a banner for either story, you are more than welcome to do so.**_


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